Thursday, November 08, 2012

Free medicine program about to begin in Rajasthan, India

One of the most populated states in India is about to begin a free
medicine program. 68 million people in Rajasthan can now have access to
over 300 generic drugs for free. After people see a doctor and get a
prescription they can go to over 13,000 drug distribution centers throughout
the state. The government buys the generic drugs directly from manufacturers.
Doctors however, are upset by the scheme as it makes it harder for them to
prescribe more expensive brand-name medicines for a profit.

“(This) has broken the cosy relationship enjoyed for decades between
doctors and (drug) manufacturers,” Dr. Nirmal Kumar Gurbani, advisor to
the Rajasthan Medical Service Corporation (RMSC) that was constituted by
Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot to run the scheme, said during a
presentation at the Second Global Symposium on Health Systems Research
in Beijing last week.

Gurbani, a professor at the Indian Institute of Health Management and
Research (IIHMR), added that the ‘Rajasthan model’ is being used as
pilot for a similar scheme throughout India, which could bring free
drugs to the country’s 1.2 billion residents.

Gurbani, a former secretary of the Essential Drug List Committee for
the Rajsathan state government, says medical expenses are the second
most common cause of rural indebtedness in India.

Citing official data, he told the audience at the conference that
more than 40 percent of those hospitalised in India needed to borrow
money or sell assets in order to afford treatment.

The cost of a single hospitalisation has pushed 35 percent of
patients below the poverty line. In fact, unaffordable healthcare has
prevented over 23 percent of the sick from consulting a doctor.

The scarcity of medical professionals has contributed to healthcare
costs reaching astronomical rates. According to the World Health
Organisation, India has just 6.5 physicians to every 10,000 patients. By
comparison, China has 14.2 doctors, while Britain has 27.4 physicians
for the same number of patients.

The expenditure on drugs alone constitutes between 50 to 80 percent
of healthcare costs in India. And all this in a country regarded as the
“world’s pharmacy”, Gurbani lamented.

India’s pharmaceutical industry is the third largest in the world
with annual production of about 25 billion dollars and domestic sales
amounting to 12 billion dollars. India exported medicines worth 13.2
billion dollars in the last fiscal and the government plans to double it
to 25 billion dollars by March 2014.

And yet, said Gurbani, “two-thirds of the population do not have regular access to essential drugs.”